Classics · Similar reads
Books like Great Expectations
The best books like Great Expectations are A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, and Homage to Catalonia. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is about class and ambition, identity and self-deception, guilt and redemption. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- A Tale of Two Cities
01
Charles Dickens · Historical fiction
A Tale of Two Cities is set against the French Revolution and follows three intertwined characters: Charles Darnay, a French aristocrat who has renounced his title and family legacy; Lucie Manette, the daughter of a man who spent eighteen years imprisoned in the Bastille; and Sydney Carton, a dissolute English lawyer who loves Lucie without hope and knows he will never be the man Darnay already is.
A kindred classics read.
Read the summary → - David Copperfield
02
Charles Dickens · Classics
David Copperfield is the novel Dickens called his "favourite child" — a first-person bildungsroman that tracks David from a motherless childhood in Suffolk through blacking-factory misery (barely disguised autobiography), education, early work in London, two marriages, and eventual literary success.
A kindred classics read.
Read the summary → - Homage to Catalonia
03
George Orwell · Memoir
Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's firsthand account of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, which he joined in late 1936 as a volunteer with the POUM militia — a Trotskyist revolutionary organization that was later suppressed by the Soviet-backed Stalinist wing of the Republican forces.
A kindred classics read.
Read the summary → - The Bell Jar
04
Sylvia Plath · Memoir
The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's only novel, published in January 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, one month before Plath's death.
A kindred classics read.
Read the summary → - All Quiet on the Western Front
05
All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque · History
All Quiet on the Western Front follows Paul Bäumer, a young German soldier who enlists with his classmates during the First World War after being swept up in patriotic speeches.
A kindred classics read.
Read the summary → - The Mayor of Casterbridge
06
Thomas Hardy · Literary fiction
The Mayor of Casterbridge opens with an act so audacious it takes a moment to process: a drunken hay-trusser named Michael Henchard sells his wife and infant daughter at a country fair for five guineas.
Shares class and ambition and guilt and redemption with Great Expectations.
Read the summary → - The Mill on the Floss
07
George Eliot · Classics
The Mill on the Floss opens with one of the most fully realized childhoods in Victorian fiction.
Both dig into class and ambition.
Read the summary → - A Darker Shade of Magic
08
V.E. Schwab · Fantasy
A Darker Shade of Magic is set across four parallel versions of London — Red, Grey, White, and the long-destroyed Black — each existing in the same location but separated by the barriers between worlds.
Both dig into loyalty and betrayal.
Read the summary → - A Game of Thrones
09
George R.R. Martin · Fantasy
A Game of Thrones is the first volume of George R.R.
Both dig into loyalty and betrayal.
Read the summary → - An Ember in the Ashes
10
Sabaa Tahir · Fantasy
An Ember in the Ashes is set in a Roman Empire-inspired world where the Martial empire has conquered and brutalized the Scholar people for centuries.
Both dig into loyalty and betrayal.
Read the summary → - Crossroads
11
Jonathan Franzen · Literary fiction
It is Christmas Eve 1971 in the Chicago suburb of New Prospect, Illinois, and the Hildebrandt family is in various states of crisis.
Both dig into guilt and redemption.
Read the summary → - Dead Souls
12
Nikolai Gogol · Literary fiction
Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov arrives in a provincial Russian town with a plan of remarkable ingenuity: he will travel from estate to estate buying up "dead souls" — serfs who have died since the last census but still appear on the tax rolls, and whose owners are still liable for taxes on them.
Both dig into identity and self-deception.
Read the summary →
Books like Great Expectations: quick answers
What are the best books like Great Expectations?
The best books like Great Expectations by Charles Dickens are A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with Great Expectations, such as class and ambition, identity and self-deception, guilt and redemption.
What should I read after Great Expectations?
A natural next read after Great Expectations is A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. A kindred classics read. Other strong choices are David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.
What books are similar to Great Expectations by Charles Dickens?
Great Expectations centers on class and ambition, identity and self-deception, guilt and redemption. Books with a similar feel include A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
